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Category: Canada

People keep asking where my next road trip will be. I’m planning for a drive out to New Brunswick in early September, and then back home around Quebec’s Gaspé peninsula, but when I mention this, those people who ask look disappointed.

It’s clear the Gaspé isn’t far enough away for them. After all, I’m the guy who drove across Canada in 2012, and who tests cars on adventurous arctic roads and exotic European highways. I should be driving from ocean to ocean at the very least.

If you enjoy travel, reading about it, or watching it on TV, you’ve probably asked yourself: Who are these people who get paid to see the world? How on earth did they land that kind of job? I’d always wondered myself, and then one day, found myself as a travel writer and international television host. How? Well, it was kind of an accident.

Dundurn Press has just released an entirely newly designed e-book set of the Jalna series written by 20th-century author Mazo de la Roche. The first book in the popular series, Jalna, was originally published in 1927. Revolving around the Whiteoak family, the books take place in Southern Ontario in a red-brick house called Jalna.

The Great Escape, the bestselling history title from acclaimed broadcaster, military historian, and author Ted Barris, was honoured at this week's Libris Award ceremony, sharing the award for Best Non-Fiction Title with Chris Hadfield’s An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth.

Peering out my window I gaze longingly over an endless expanse of ice blanketing Lake Superior, a virtual freshwater ocean. A steady flurry of wet snow pelts against the window melting instantly. It halts briefly before dripping down the pane blurring the grey and unwelcoming vista. Despite my best efforts I must admit that my disposition matches the sullen landscape as an especially harsh and brutal winter in Northern Ontario shows few signs of relenting well into this month of April.

One of the most exciting things about writing a book is that you learn so much along the way. When I started researching Mobilize! I had a rather cartoonish view of former Prime Minister Mackenzie King. He sounded rather dull but the more I read and studied about him the more I came to respect him. Yes, he spent hours communing with the dead; yes, he could be petty; and yes, he drove his staff to distraction with all his demands. He was an impossible boss. But there is a lot more to him especially the more I began to realize that his top priority was always Canadian unity.

The book we’ve been talking about on themusicexpress.ca magazine for the past 18 months, will be available online and in your favourite book store in May when “Music Express – The Rise, Fall and Resurrection Of Canada’s Music Magazine (Dundurn Press) finally rolls off the presses.

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We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.